A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket exploded in the final minutes of a simulated countdown at Cape Canaveral on Thursday, destroying the booster and an Israeli communications satellite valued at nearly $200 million.

Elon Musk: A Million Humans Could Live on Mars By the 2060s The SpaceX plan for building a Mars settlement includes refueling in orbit, a fleet of passenger ships, and the biggest rocket ever made. In short, Musk thinks it’s possible to begin shuttling thousands of people between Earth and our smaller, redder neighbor sometime within the next decade or so. And not too long after that—perhaps 40 or a hundred years later, Mars could be home to a self-sustaining colony of a million people.

“This is not about everyone moving to Mars, this is about becoming multiplanetary,” he said on September 27 at the International Astronautical Congress in Guadalajara, Mexico. “This is really about minimizing existential risk and having a tremendous sense of adventure.”